Taking the form of a four-channel video installation with surround sound, The Weather Orchestra is an ode to the elements, expressing both our deep relationship and entanglement with the weather and celebrating our connection to the atmosphere and the earth.
In this installation the gallery space transforms into an indoor weather system generated through sound vibration and singing. Three projections feature musicians performing instruments and analogue noise machines designed to imitate the sounds of natural phenomena. A Baroque wind machine, Latin American ceremonial rain sticks, an ocean drum, a water-phone, a thunder-tube and metal thunder-sheets fill the space with a meteorological music and allude to the forces and magnificence of nature. In the middle of this soundscape and swept up by the noise, human voices burst in folk songs expressing joy, fear and wonder toward all elements surrounding us.
The Weather Orchestra is part of Karikis’s project Acoustics of Resistance – a project comprising of works that collectively tune into the sonorities of socio-political change and ecology. It rejoices in the transformative power of listening and sound-making while declaring that changing the course of climate change is in our hands.
It has been created in collaboration with performers from mainland Portugal, Madeira, Syria and Denmark, and continues to expand through the research of musical instruments imitating meteorological sounds and folk songs in different cultural contexts.
